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America Needs More Open-Access, Middle-Mile Broadband Networks – Montana Law Stands In the Way of Progress
The report describes how OAMM’s can address the “broadband monopoly problem” by giving more ISPs an opportunity to serve different customer bases. In all U.S. contexts — whether urban, rural or tribal — at least one-third of residents only have one broadband option.
“If we build it, will they come?” The report claims the answer is “yes” based on evidence in several states, including Virginia, Nevada, Massachusetts, Illinois and Washington.
“Limited competition is typically associated with harm to consumers in the form of higher prices, lower quality, slower innovation, reduced customer service, or some combination thereof,” the report said. “And, because fixed broadband is a widely subscribed service that, especially in light of the COVID-19 crisis, is now an essential pathway to participation in our democracy, society, and economy, any artificially higher prices will tend to disproportionately harm those subscribers who have lower incomes.”
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Municipal Broadband Is Roadblocked Or Outlawed In 22 States States without municipal broadband restrictions have lower internet prices on average.
States without restrictions enjoyed higher access to low-priced broadband plans on average. Low-priced access data was taken from active internet plans in our database as of Q2 2020.
Montana Code Annotated 2019 Government Competition With Private Internet Services Providers Prohibited
Research Suggests State Broadband Policies Make a Difference
A new article in Telecommunications Policy presents evidence that local areas generally fare better when states award broadband money to providers and allow municipalities to get into the broadband business.
Why only “Broadband” – Why not “Gigabit Fiber” for Montana? Let’s build for the future. Digital Town Squares Drive Economic Development
Gigabit internet is the next generation of broadband internet service which is typically delivered over fiber optic lines and provides speeds of 1,000Mbps, which is also referred to as “1 Gbps” or “Gigabit” internet.
